1. Failure to
have a trading plan in place before a trade is executed.
Without a specific plan, a trader does not know, among other
things, when or where he will exit the trade or how much
money may be made or lost. Traders with no predetermined
trading plan are flying by the seat of their pants, and
that's usually a recipe for a "crash and burn."

2. Inadequate
trading assets or improper money management. It does not
take a fortune to trade the stock or futures markets
successfully. Traders with less than $10,000 in their
trading accounts can and do trade successfully. And traders
with $50,000 or more in their trading accounts can and do
lose it all in a heartbeat. Part of trading success boils
down to proper money management and not gunning for those
high-risk "home-run" type trades that involve too much
capital at one time.

3. Expectations
that are too high, too soon. Beginning traders who
expect to quit their "day jobs" and make a good living
trading in their first few years are usually disappointed.
You don't become a successful doctor or lawyer or business
owner in the first couple of years of the practice. It takes
hard work and perseverance to achieve success in any field
of endeavor -- and trading is no different. Trading markets
is not the easy, "get-rich-quick" scheme that a few unsavory
characters make it out to be.

4. Failure to use
protective stops. Using protective buy or sell stops
upon entering a trade provide a trader with a good idea of
how much money he or she is risking on that particular
trade, should it turn out to be a loser. Protective stops
are a good money-management tool, but they're not perfect.
There are no perfect money-management tools in futures
trading.

5. Lack of
"patience" and "discipline." While these two virtues are
overworked and very often mentioned when determining what
unsuccessful traders lack, not many will argue with their
merits. Indeed: Don't trade just for the sake of trading or
just because you haven't traded for a while. Let those very
good trading "setups" come to you, and then act upon them in
a prudent way. The market will do what the market wants to
do -- and nobody can force the market's hand.

6. Trading
against the trend -- or trying to pick tops and bottoms in
markets. It's human nature to want to buy low and sell
high (or sell high and buy low for short-side traders).
Unfortunately, that's not a proven means of making profits
in futures trading. Top-pickers and bottom-pickers are
usually trading against the trend, which is a major mistake.

7. Letting losing
positions ride too long. Most successful traders will
not sit on a losing position for very long. They'll set a
tight protective stop, and if it's hit, they'll take their
losses (usually minimal), then move on to the next potential
setup. Traders who sit on a losing trade "hoping" the market
will soon turn in their favor are usually doomed.

8. "Overtrading."
Trading too many markets at one time is a mistake --
especially if you are racking up losses. If losses are
piling up, it's time to cut back on trading, even though the
temptation is to make more trades to recover the recently
lost assets. It takes keen focus and concentration to be a
successful futures trader. Having "too many irons in the
fire" at one time is a mistake.

9. Failure to
accept complete responsibility for your actions. When
you have a losing trade or are in a losing streak, don't
blame your broker or someone else. You are responsible for
your own success or failure in trading. You make the
decisions. If you feel you are not in firm control of your
own trading, then why do you feel that way? You should make
immediate changes that put you in firm control of your own
trading destiny.

10. Not getting a
bigger-picture perspective on a market. One can look at
a daily bar chart and get a shorter-term perspective on a
market or stock trend. But a look at the longer-term weekly
or monthly chart for that same market can reveal a
completely different picture. It is prudent to examine
longer-term charts for that bigger-picture perspective when
contemplating a trade.

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